Ganesh's Daughter (English Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

What Unseen Sorrow lies in waiting?
What unseen sorrow lies in waiting?
A shadow stretches on the lawn
Have I regrets? Yes, far too many
A cloud of guilt disfigures dawn

I never fulfilled expectations
Duties I shirked or set adrift
Some memories are diamond- cuts
Sharply the hourglass moments shift

Too late I realize the price
Of cruelty and selfish acts
But where's the gain to be a-sharing
Such dismal, small and petty facts?

Enough. My footprints on the beach
Are fodder for the ravening tide
Soon all my mornings, days and nights
Will vanish in the ocean's side

And if there is a realm of ghosts
Will o the wisps, who knows or cares
For phantoms have no power to hurt
The turning treadmill of the years

Mist
I love the river mist of crisp midwinter
The way it hides the birds from their songs
Like the songs were disembodied

Age hobbles ahead of me
At night I dream of the dead

My skin slackens
Already it is itching to be off


Dandies of Today
Metrosexual gentle thugs, all tattoos and swagger
Ice cream quiffs
Harris Tweed suit, bespoke brogues
Cocaine sniffs

Clothes horse me-males preen and pluck
Ostentatious scarf/cravat
Waistcoat, lipstick, chutzpah-strut
Mascara, braces, bowler hat

To be a Narcissus boys, to please/appal
Requires much gelt, like a rock star
Pride needs the where-with-all


Dandies.18th Century
Court suits, breeches, waistcoats
Sought aesthetic accessories.

Stockings, dress swords, watches,
And buttons, picked to please

The hilt of a dress sword was glamorous
With a hilt of cut-steel studs
That glimmered in evening candle light
Worn by dandies and young bloods

Stockings were indispensable
With knee-length breeches below
And stripes of pink and caramel
And silk, of course, for show

Buttons were made of steel or pearl
That like a diamond shone
Shoe buckles were wrought from silver
And some had jewels laid on

Watches were status symbols
On waistcoat fobs, so nice
Snuff boxes safely pocketed
The period drug of choice

Walking sticks or walking canes
Social prestige upheld
Defence against pickpockets
To rap their heads, or geld

Jabots, sophisticated,
Were linen trimmed with lace
Some fops were richly perfumed
With powder on the face

Beau Brummel was their leader
The arbiter of taste
But calling the Prince Regent fat
Led to his swift disgrace

Never bite the hand that feeds you
Favourites are quick to fall
And if your patron snubs you
If wise, absorb it all

Game Set & Match
Check out the delivery room right now
Mrs McKay contractions are coming each minute
She should be able to coast home on past form
(this is her third birth)

Now let's get ready to rock and roll
For a world-class labour, no hitches foreseen

Mrs McKay makes a real effort
With Mr McKay in the offside position

There's a star line up of midwives
Waiting in the wings
Ready to pass the instruments up the line
If the gynaecologist needs them


But we're not dealing with a novice here
And the staff have all bases covered

Well it's down to the final minutes
Heart in mouth moments
There's a breakthrough now
The head is crowning
Coming
Coming
What a result! Twins!

Much praise to all
And Mr McKay is definitely the man of the moment
Reading the situation beautifully
He cuddles the babies safely
A real pro

What a thriller!
Two thumping boys
A textbook delivery
One for the memory books
Into extra time
But a real win win at the end!


At a Graveside
Crows flock beside the stones
Mourners grieve lost bones

Do the dead mourn their unused innings?
Do they miss the corn briering
And the dew of each day's beginnings?

The dead lie mute and motionless
Line upon line
Mute and motionless
Each in his box of pine


Ganesh's Daughter
This day the sun is a yellow temple gong
The elephant stands, inscrutable as a god
A stoic, impervious to worship or to loathing

What old mistakes made
Ganesh's daughter subservient to man?
Her thoughts now are her only privacies

She sways from foot to foot
Feeling the foot chain's tug
As her spine is loaded
Like the hull of a mighty slave ship

Little by little, her mahout guides the tourists
Onto the howdah, keeping the load well balanced

Does she imagine days before man's omnipresence
Jungle freedoms, the animal warmth of the herd?
The line of tourists will never end till she dies

The sun moves lower in the sky
Her mahout nudges her ears with his bare feet
Unchained, she steps out slowly in majesty
A Rajput queen, stripped of her rightful glories


Skye on a Swing
Skye on a swing soars high, drops low
Her small voice rings like a tremolo

Each day's different, memories accrue
Not a care in the world when the world is new

Skye on a swing. her life is young
So many paths to go
Songs to be sung


Woman on a Bus
Hair pulled back hard in a ponytail
Piggy eyes, large plastic specs
Light fuzz of facial hair

Snub nose, teeth as yellow's a pustule
Winter coat, padded like a plump cupcake
Lumpy legs stuffed into leggings
Like pigs in blankets

Clumpy trainers (designer, of course)
She looks like she's chewing a wasp
Her voice grates like a rasp
She clings to her mobile phone,
Her comforter, her lifeline
Replacing the dummy & teddybear of childhood


Dancing Peasant
From Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Wedding Dance in the Open Air.

The dancing peasant's codpiece is stained with pee,
Dried spunk and mud from his filthy farmer fingers

The cloth hammock holding his balls sways to the fiddlers' rhythm
His bulbous his nose is that of the hardened toper

His mouth is wet with ale, sweat sticks to his skin
He is celebrating a neighbour's nuptials
His cap clings to his skull
The average life span in his time and place
Was thirty-five…He dances hard, happy to be alive
Not wasting a second


War Horse
I have carried their guns and munitions
Their cannon and stores
Their wounded, their dying

I have served them very well
Far away from my farmyard fields

I have served them through mud and hail
Through sharpnel and shell

I am newly dead. Already they've unstrapped
The reins and the bit from my head

Tomorrow I'll be resurrected in a stew
Rats will devour my vitals

I have served them well in mud and hail
Through shrapnel and shell
There is nothing more to tell
In Ypres, death is hell


The Portuguese man o' war
A man-of-war was a powerful frigate
Full sailed and armed to the teeth
All froth and bubble above
And death beneath

Sea killer, propelled by wind
Deadly as snakes
Tentacles sieve the sea
Like vicious rakes

The Portuguese man o' war
Has venomous threads
Powerful enough to kill fish,
And on occasion, humans
It is a colonial organism
Sinister, and unfeeling
Its parts allow it to act
As a single being.

Sea killer, propelled by wind
Deadly as snakes
Tentacles sieve the sea
Like vicious rakes

It is found in tropical waters,
Living at the surface of the ocean.
Its stinging tentacles remain submerged
Like Medusa's hair, like deadly swaying dreadlocks
Hypnotic and sensuous, their swaying motion

The Portuguese man-o-war moves passively,
Driven by winds, by currents, by tides.
A man o' war washed up on a beach
May strike, when out of the waves
Even there, like the plague
This malevolent creature reigns

The bladder is tinged with blue, pink, purple, or mauve,
The tentacles can be over 30 metres long
Injecting venom on contact,
With slides and wishes
They sting, they paralyze, kill
All manner of squids and fishes

Sea killer, propelled by wind
Deadly as snakes
Tentacles sieve the sea
Like vicious rakes

Even dead specimens sting
For days post mortem, they drive their poison in
Inflicting severe pain
Leaving whip-like, red welts on the skin

Like the Paegniarius of the Colosseum
The gladiator wielding the whip
The venom can swell the larynx,
Make the airway block
Precipitate cardiac distress,
Cause fever & shock

Sea killer, propelled by wind
Deadly as snakes
Tentacles sieve the sea
Like vicious rakes

The Portuguese man o' war is a carnivore.
It traps, paralyzes prey
Then reels it in to digest
Clearing the weak away

War Legions of over 1000 colonies
Have been spied floating together.

Ask the ghosts of warring seamen
What the lash of the cat o'nine tails felt like on impact
Delivered again and again
The Portuguese man o' war
Comes trailing pain


The Closing: Virginia Woolfe, died 28 March 1941
Incestuous abuse of a child
By an older sibling, male
Rips up the codes of normality
A twisted love that corners, pounces, traps
Tipping the scales of reason
Like shifting sands that suddenly collapse
Precursor to insanity
Sexual awakening, came out of season

Where home's no longer safe
Where could she flee to?
Only the inner reaches of the mind
Lit by imagination, Reality, struck blind

That Friday in March, her last day of life
Was cold, though yellow flowers blossomed in the garden

Putting her fur coat on, taking her stick
Through the gate she went
Past the church
Heading towards the river

A farm worker clearing a ditch
Observed her go
Dismissed it, went home to his dinner

The river was high and fast
As she entered the swollen current
Her pocket plugged with stone
Her watched stopped at precisely 11.45 am
The water placed a lid on matters, formally

Her husband Leonard wrote
‘They say, Come to tea and let us comfort you
But it's no good.
One must be crucified
On one's own personal cross'

That was a man who knew the weight of loss


The Leaning Tree of Kippford
The hawthorn tree at Kippford,
Is guarding the Scottish coastline
A solitary tree, sentinel on a beach.

It is a centenarian, wizened and thrawn
It has been thrashed by sea fret
Scourged by the howling winds of winter gales

Battered askew, it clings to its anchor
Like a ragged old crow, clutching a twisted perch

The Horror Tree, Stowlangtoft, Suffolk
It has a twisted tongue
That forks from its ugsome mouth -
A wooden gargoyle knotted by giant griefs

It is frozen in an apocalyptic scream
The Horror Tree, revealing Nature's angst
Gripped in the raking claws of climate change
In the maw of natural disasters, of oceans rising
This tree with its hollow eyes
Its horrid crooked teeth
Expresses the inexpressible

Sylvan monster, half man, half copper beech
Stark, its very bark is warped with suffering
It is the very image of turmoil, trauma
It goes against the grain of brotherhood
Its very resin, poisoned, leprous, blanched
A warning standing in a shivering wood


Goodbye 2021
December came and went like stale broth
The whole year seemed to come apart the seams,
Like a tosser in torn-thread denims
Like the ruin of a soggy blancmanche

The horses of the apocalypse gallop on
In the days of Covid casualties
Which continue to joust through the lists
Businesses cling to the cliff edge of oblivion
Raw hunger vies with hunger and cold,
As to which will wring a payment from the poor
I would like to clean the seas of plastic tat
Obliterate steeples of glass, smash statues to power.
But my wishes seem to have had their mouths taped up
Goodbye, good riddance,2021
Arise, take up your bed and walk